Thoughts on co-habitation…and it’s impending demise

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17 October 2006

There has been some debate over whether the marriage strike is taking effect. Granted, many of us guys may like to assume so and this can cloud judgement. Certainly, there are still plenty of men willingly tying the noose…I mean, er, knot.

However, there is no mistaking the fact that marriage is down, that judging by women’s complaints – impossible to ignore unless you avoid them and mainstream media – they are finding it difficult to find a man “willing to commit.” It will take a while longer for it to truly sink in. It is estimated by the British Office of National Statistics that a third of women under 30 today will never marry or have children. Now most women under 30, certainly those aged 18 – 24, often don’t care about marriage. They can replace their current boyfriend with a new one easy enough, they’re steaming ahead into their careers under the impression that they can get male attention (and money) when they’re in their thirties, and often under the bizarre belief that their biological clocks won’t start ticking until they’re pushing 40 (when, in fact, it’s around 27.) It’ll take a good decade for all these women to pass thirty and for the majority to be keen on marriage, and only around two-thirds of those have either a husband or some prospects of finding one. The other third will number several million and will surely exceed the already vast and rising numbers of single women unable to find a hubby. As someone pointed out in the comments of the previous post, it can be concluded that the marriage strike is taking effect if the co-habitation laws are coming into effect; the divorce industry and fembots are clearly getting worried by men avoiding marriage.

The marriage strike did take a while to take hold though. It was the 1960s when feminism really made inroads into ruining society, and the 1970s before the lawyers and politicians got on the bandwagon with things like no-fault divorce and making sure divorce courts were there solely to strip men of their assets and, even worse, their children. Yet it was not until the 1990s that marriage rates began to drop, that more men began to avoid marriage in greater numbers, and 2002 until the term Marriage Strike was coined.

However, men’s avoidance of co-habitation will be far, far swifter. Quite simply, most guys may have taken a long while – a full generation or two – in order to grasp the horrors of divorce should they undergo it, not to mention the rising rate of divorce. Now, however, most men are wise to it. There are a significant number who aren’t, but most men – even if they may niavely plan on marrying “some day” – are aware, to some degree or other, that if they marry, there is a significant chance of divorce, and it’ll be him who comes out worst off, deprived of a house, savings, car and children. It won’t take decades of seeing other men ruined by co-habitation laws and seeing women wring dry a man she lived with for a couple of years. All it takes is for the tens of millions of men who are aware that divorce leads to financial ruin for a man to realise that breaking up with a co-habiting girlfriend will be the same, and hey presto, all these men will add “Let girlfriend move in” to their “Mental Note Of Things To Never Do List” along with “Marriage” and “Put knob-end in deep-fat frier.”

For example, imagine if there were no such thing as speed limits and speeding fines on motorways. To raise money under the guise of road safety, the government introduces a speed limit of 60mph on the motorways and anyone caught on a speed camera is fined £100. For a while, despite it being public knowledge, many will be caught out. They might not have heard about the fines, or think the government isn’t serious, or that they’ll get away with it, or simply forget. The money will come flowing in. After a few months it’ll dry up as drivers, based on their’s and other people’s experiences, start ensuring they drive around the 50 to 55mph mark. The government, wanting more money, decides that if most people are driving at this speed, they just have to introduce a new speed limit; 50mph. This time, almost imediately, the money flowing in from speeding fines will dry up. Drivers quickly just switch to cruising along at about 45mph. They’re used to the penalties for speeding now so there is nothing new to get used to except the new speeding limit.

Okay, not a fantastic analogy, but it’ll do. Similarly, it took many years for men to realise that many women wouldn’t hesitate to ditch us if it proved profitable, and that there is no justice in the family courts, that they’re there to ensure as much money is taken from us and given to our ex-wives, regardless of whether it’s objectively fair. Most of us finally realise this and those of us with any sense avoid marriage in order to avoid divorce. Now that two-years of co-habitation will result in the equivalent of being married, and splitting up after two-years of co-habitation is the equivalent of being divorced, there’s nothing new to get used to with regards to the very real penalties for being legally involved with a woman, just the new limit; namely, merely living with her for a couple of years.

This may be just a theory, but we’re seeing it already in Australia. Like most nations, it was a few decades after no-fault divorces and anti-male bias in the divorce courts until men started avoiding marriage in large numbers. However, just five-years after laws were introduced to let a woman plunder a man just by living with him for six-months, there are already reports of around a quarter of all women living alone or with parents, and many other women struggling with a mortgage on their own or with a house full of other spinsters. Men have already started avoiding co-habiting as they have marriage. The same goes for New Zealand. In fact a report the other week on these new laws in Britain showed that, already, many men were ditching live-in girlfriends even before the law was passed. They knew full well the law would go through! Prevention is better than the cure and all that.

Therefore, I theorize, we won’t have to wait for more than a few years for the avoidance of co-habitation to kick in. It’ll occur just at the same time the marriage strike really takes hold on a generation of worn out 30+ women desperate for a sucker. Get ready for some major whining and hissy fits from many women realising they’ll be living alone – or with a load of other spinsters – all their lives, working full-time instead of retiring at 30 as they planned, and who’ll probably end up either childless or struggling single mums.

Oh, and get ready for a steadily rising chorus of futile and laughable shaming language hurled at us “good-for-nothing commitment-phobic (and annoyingly happy) bachelors” for refusing to co-habit or marry.

It’ll be a hoot! Grab the popcorn, kick back and have a laugh.

posted by Duncan Idaho @ 5:14 PM
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At 6:14 PM, Anonymous said…

Such laws are always introduced in a way that they seem reasonable at first glance, hence the example of the cohabiting mother.
Next law may be that mothers will have the right to get the house of the father, even if the did not cohabit. It is the same line of logic and much more probable than a law defining cohabitation as one month of living together.

Obviously we want to protect women who have born our children, at present this sensible feeling is abused by women who take the children away and betray their legitimate husband.
A Father is the legitimate husband of a mother and should marry – if marriage was the same as it used to be.

Many men accept alimony for children and mother a s long as they do not face the situation themselves.

No men will accept to pay alimony or sharing half of his house (!) for a girlfriend living two years with him.
They may be forced to accept, but most of them will simply avoid this very fast.
The cohabition strike cmes faster than the marriage strike and reinforces and accelerates the marriage strike.

All this mess is due to the permission of divorce and unmarried mothers.

Forbid divorce (except for good reasons, like infertility, but not because of a “feeling”),
make marriage for parents compulsory and the problem ist solved.

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At 6:17 PM, Dennis Mangan said…

An excellent analysis. Maybe another generation will see the futility and stupidity of these laws, but until they do, lots of men and women are going to suffer the consequences.

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At 6:30 PM, Anonymous said…

Sadly it is not laughable at all. It makes women even more a financial danger. For men who would like to have a family and children it gets unbearable. It gets sad.

I say men who want children, this implies that the children live with their father and not with a greedy divorced mother (and her lover if she has one) who complains because of a bit of housework.

This magazine told women to be nice towards their husbands, simply be nice, do the duty and do not nag.
If a woman does that and has children a man has to be happy and to honour the marriage. He has to.

But today women make the life of married men difficult to say the least.

Excerpts:

– Don’t greet him with complaints and problems.
– Make him comfortable. Have him lean back in a comfortable chair or have him lie down in the bedroom. Have a cool or warm drink ready for him.
– Your goal: Try to make sure your home is a place of peace, order and tranquility where your husband can renew himself in body and spirit.

This should be the normal goal of married non-working women. It should be normal.

Of course there are women who want to work, they are simply not the majority. The majority of women wants children and a husband who provides for them. Some girls told me exactly that.
But if they want to be a household wife, they have to do their duty like in the 1950s.
Men do their duty like in the 1950s: they work and get money – so shall married non-working women.

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At 8:07 PM, Paul Parmenter said…

All too obvious and simplistic I’m afraid, Anonymous 6.30pm. It’s not that you are wrong, just that it doesn’t happen that way any more. Men haven’t changed since 1955, but women have.

Sure there are women who want children and a husband who provides for them. That’s the nice easy bit. But returning the favour – or honour – and looking after said husband is as far away from the intent of women in 2006 as Pluto is from the sun. They don’t want to look after their husbands and fetch his tea and slippers any more than they want to shampoo their hair in creosote. That’s why it won’t happen.

I can guarantee that if you stand in the middle of any group of women anywhere in the western world today (except just possibly an old folks’ home – and even then I’m not too sure) and repeat what you have written, you will be howled down, denigrated as a chauvinist pig and probably tarred and feathered – if you get away with your life and balls intact at all.

Women have convinced themselves that looking after a man and satisfying his needs is a total betrayal. It’s all one way now: men exist only to give, and women just want to take. That forces men to put up the shields, and you are now seeing a concerted attempt by governments to appease the demands of feminists by tearing men’s shields away. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

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At 8:48 PM, pete said…

You are very correct with the speeding example. I don’t know how many people still get caught by fixed speed cameras today, but its the greediness that tips off the public.

Just like the fact that greediness is the pitfall of any successful criminal. When they get too greedy, they leave clues. Like the fact that the emphasis on speeding is actually hindering the accident rate from falling and that it is a revenue scam.

As they cast their nets wider and wider, you’ll see more and more people eschewing living together. I really don’t want this law to pass in the US, since I love living with my girlfriend, but I will do the needful if it were to pass. Not doing so would be like handing a gun to a child. You can’t blame the child for its curiosity, just like you can’t blame the weak woman for showing her weakness. (and our courts agree – even they think women are weaker than men and are held accountable to a lower standard.)

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At 9:30 PM, Anonymous said…

Thanks for that lowdown, Duncan. I for sure wouldn’t mind having a yearly status bar monitoring of the Assrape Withdrawal Syndrome(yet another deserved AWS moniker). It’s getting to the point where a man can’t leave his damn home anymore without abject scrutiny!

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At 9:31 PM, Viking said…

There is still at least a little bit of stigma against living together as opposed to marrying. It may be accepted as an initial step toward marriage but society (read as the ruling female clase) still expects it to progress towards marriage so that she gets her protection, aka commitment.

Given this, those men who cohabit do so to protect themselves. Some completely by not really planning to ever get married. (That bastard led me on) Others by at least delaying the legal commitment in order to “see if it will work”. The only reason to cohabit is to mitigate risk. Once they remove they only benefit to cohabiting it will disappear very quickly, within a few years I think. If shacking up is the same as getting married then why not get married. If you are not willing to take the risk then you will have to avoid both, completely.

Some men will continue to get married, perhaps hoping that the religious convictions of there girlfriend will protect them. Many will still see it as the right thing for a Christian to do and “surely she won’t divorce me, we don’t believe in that.” But the only guys who cohabit already know that they are “doing wrong”. They will simply have no problem with never asking her to move in. Simple transition.

Now when they make any sex at all a default marriage we are going to have some problems. And don’t put it past our governments to require men to marry. Think it could never happen? Think again.

“In 18 B.C., the Emperor Augustus turned his attention to social problems at Rome. Extravagance and adultery were widespread. Among the upper classes, marriage was increasingly infrequent and, many couples who did marry failed to produce offspring.”

Sound familiar?

“Augustus, who hoped thereby to elevate both the morals and the numbers of the upper classes in Rome, and to increase the population of native Italians in Italy, enacted laws to encourage marriage and having children (lex Julia de maritandis ordinibus)”

“Speech of the censor Quintus Caecilius Metellus Macedonicus about the law requiring men to marry in order to produce children. According to Livy (Per. 59), in 17 B.C. Augustus read out this speech, which seemed “written for the hour”, in the Senate in support of his own legislation encouraging marriage and childbearing.

‘If we could survive without a wife, citizens of Rome, all of us would do without that nuisance; but since nature has so decreed that we cannot manage comfortably with them, nor live in any way without them, we must plan for our lasting preservation rather than for our temporary pleasure.'”

‘All of us would do without that nuisance’ indeed. Truly, there is nothing new under the sun and our generation is not the first to face these problems. The light at the end of the tunnel, my friends is called “the Dark Ages.”

Be Strong, Stay Single!

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At 10:24 PM, Anonymous said…

The “Housekeeping Monthly”, May 13, 1955 article is a fabrication. No original has been found and it has been shown that the image is from a 1957 article (i.e. it was fabricated after 1957 to make it look like it was from 1955).

The snopes page is interesting in itself, because it admits the article is fake but then says the status is “undetermined”.

It almost like someone wanted it to be true…

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At 10:33 PM, Anonymous said…

@paul parmenter: I would marry, if i could be sure of having a good and caring wife, who does her duty.
Women can be wonderful.

Yes, I would be denigrated because doing something good is seen as slavery.

I would rather give a 6 year old an M16 and instruct him well in the use and effects of it, than give a girlfriend the opportunity – just the opportunity – to get my property. If I instruct her, I increase the chance to be robbed.

The child seeing the effect of the gun on targets, knowing how to disassemble and reassemble it, is far less dangerous and is far more trustworthy.

All men would like to marry. The prospect of a caring loving wife is wonderful, a wife who takes care of your children who listens to you is a charm and dream of many men.

And most men believe in this dream to fall in the trap of divorce, to talk to lawyers, psychiatrists, judges, pay alimony and never see there children again.

It is a horrible mess. It is a mess that is not made for humans, because most humans want stable relationships.

A wife who cares about her husband has the right to expect that he honours the marriage. A caring wife is loved and payed attention to.
A caring wife smiles at her husband and do not even think of feelings that could disturb her relationship.

Women today live like they did 50 years ago: a man provides for them, but the woman has nearly nothing to do anymore. Housework has become easy, in former times women had to wash clothing themselves. Sure this was hard, but this made them not think about lovers.
Women had more children. 2 or 3 children are not enough to really make a woman work hard. 5-10 children are far better.

Even without so many children, a woman should be happy. There is no reason to be unhappy with 2 children and a husband who provides for her.

It is her duty to make him happy. No fault divorce needs to be made illegal.

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At 11:15 PM, byrdeye said…

That 50s laundry list was probably a hoax, nonetheless, women DID more happily cater to their men similarly…just as men also did to their wives.

But, so funny how feminists BRAG about not being able to cook and clean these days…yet you never hear us men brag about not fixing the car or mowing the lawn…

Yea, real “progress,” huh?

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At 11:18 PM, Playboy said…

A relatively attractive women will always be able to find a boyfriend. If men refuse to marry and and refuse to co-habitate it simply means that women will lie about being on birth control in order to get pregnant with gentlemen who can afford to pay support. They are then free to move on to the next boyfriend. Again, all they will do is skip the marriage-divorce part and move right to single mother (with support).

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At 11:18 PM, Anonymous said…

Look, don’t lose hope…the men’s movement simply has not reached the TIPPING POINT yet. Once it does, it will really gain steam! Right now, disgruntled, frustrated, bitter pressure is building but it’s like 8 PM on the dancefloor at the prom – people are still afraid to be the first few out there. Once enough people join in though, it will get PACKED in FULL SCCCHWWINNNGG! Keep spreading the word and this site, all!

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At 11:33 PM, Connie said…

I am a woman. I worked 30 years at my job. I am now retired and my husband does not work, he lives off my retirement. Some women do pay for the household.

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At 11:36 PM, Anonymous said…

Obviously we want to protect women who have born ouur children,

and in the year 2030 when Abdul his 2 wives and 8 children who he wants to protect sees all of these 60 something infidel sinisters taking up a big house all by themselves what do you think is going to happen???

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At 12:03 AM, Anonymous said…

It seems that the house keeping monthly is fake, that is true. The same site says that similar values for women were propagated:
“Work for inner happiness and seek to understand its rules.”

The site is extremely feminist. The good wife who does her duty is considered living in servitude.

Why are men who work for their wife never considered living in servitude?
Especially if they are divorced, still pay and never see their children?

The duties of wives 50 years ago weren’t servitude they were simply duty and most women wanted it so, because most women do not want to work.
The snopes site is extremely biased, as it does not recognise the fact that young girls wish children and a husband who provides for them.

Anyone can check it for himself: ask a young girl how she envisions her future. You will hear children and husband, please no work.

A husband who provides for them – doesn’t it sound familiar? Could we consider him a slave?
Using the same logic that makes a dutiful wife a servant we could, but know one concludes this, because work is considered to be fun.

The rules in houskeeping monthly are very rational and are sure to make a marriage happy.
These rules, which are so heavily denigrated by snopes, are easy to follow and do not demand much effort.

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At 12:33 AM, Brazilian Bachelor said…

I guess when people of the future look at our age, they’ll find it fascinating. It’s a huge live sociological experience — It proves, in real life, the old saying… women like men for money, nothing else. If they can get the money without the man, ditch the man!

In Brazil we always say (I’ll do a poor translation here, but you can get the meaning):

“Gay men are the ones who likes men. Women like money.”

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At 1:26 AM, Mamonaku187 said…

Very interesting take.

These laws will have a chilling effect on the anything goes meat market we call sex, love, and relationships.

A great many guys live with their parents well into their twenties… I was one of these. When I moved out of my parent’s home, I moved in with my at the time girlfriend, as it was easier, more enjoyable, and cheaper than going it alone.

Expect living at home to increase.

Frankly, unless a forced marriage law were passed, I could see men hanging in there until the wheels fall off!

Things are going to be resolved in our favor either way… the divorce laws will be changed to encourage marriage and childbirth, or the laws won’t be changed, society collapses, and we men begin anew.

In the meantime, we gotta survive as best we can until things change for the better.

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At 1:52 AM, Anonymous said…

There have been times when I’ve doubted that this Marriage Strike is working. I used to be among the disillusioned young men ignorant of the gross injustices perpetrated on men.

Fortunately, I fell on hard times and was able to see reality. While working a crappy, low-paying job to get back on my feet, I couldn’t believe how many of my co-workers were working two jobs or horrendous overtime because more than half their paycheck was going to child support and/or alimony. Every single one paying child support was a man, and about half of the male employees were paying it.

It was kind of sad that I had more take home pay than these guys despite only working 40 hours a week. There was even one poor soul in his late 60’s that had been forced back to work by a greedy woman several years after retirement. She divorced him after over 30 years of marriage taking most of his possessions, a substantial piece of his pension, and his dream of retiring. He used to have a high paying career as an engineer, now he’s working for not much more than minimum wage on the graveyard shift. He told me he would probably have to go back to school if he wants to work again in engineering and he probably can’t afford it.

Seeing these laws gives me hope that the message must be getting out for the Matriarchy to respond like this. I have difficulty convincing my close friends to avoid women. Unfortunately, I don’t think most men 18 to 24-ish have any clue about what is going on or what their girlfriends and the courts have in store for them. Hopefully, they won’t have to learn from first hand experience.

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At 5:07 AM, Anonymous said…

Cohabitation laws!?!?!? This is why Europe will transition into Eurabia within a generation. The governments are doing their level best to encourage indigenous populations to pretty much wither away. Reproduction is becoming a pointless burden. This is what the end of Western civilization looks like. Autogenocide.

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At 2:13 PM, Anonymous said…

Remember the Law of Unintended Consequences.

“Oh, and get ready for” … generations of males raised by these “whining and hissy fitting women realising they’ll be living alone – or with a load of other spinsters – all their lives, working full-time instead of retiring at 30 as they planned, struggling single mums.”

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At 3:32 PM, Anonymous said…

I’ve found it useful to when confronted by a fembot demanding why I’m not married to ask her to list the pros and cons for a male getting married these days. If they take the bait the pros will be all blue skys, rainbows, and butterflies. They’ll paint a picture of heaven. For cons they can’t thing of anything. If I press them ‘Do you seriously think there are no cons for males getting married?’ they often immediately start to become nervous. It’s like you’re forcing a neurotic person to confront an uncomfortable reality. Specifically about them. Women. Most of the times I will get some grudging acknowlegement of the risks men face then they drop the subject (more out of it’s making them uncomfortable). On the reality extreme of the scale, where women readily admit marriage for men today is dangerous, I’ve only encountered that in very old women. For example, I had an 85 year old woman observe that young women today are insane and she doesn’t blame me at all for not wanting to marry them. The fact that her son shot himself and she blames his wife certainly didn’t improve her view of contemporary women. On the other end of the spectrum (Loopyville) I’ll meet more than a few women (more than the Realists – older women, but less than the Grudging Acceptors – middle of the scale) who just deny there can be any cons to males getting married. No matter what I say (e.g., “Everything in life has pros and cons, doesn’t it?”) they will not acknowledge any cons to males getting married to women. If there are any problems it is always the man’s fault. I’d put nymom in that dingbat category. Once you categorize them it’s easier to dismiss them.

But the main thing I found is rather than a screaming match back-and-forth is to ask them to think. List the pros and cons for males getting married. I’d say 50-60% of the time you will find a Grudging Acceptor (i.e., once her brain starts reviewing the situation she will see how bad it is for males, but then change the subject quickly because it is such an uncomfortable reality to confront)

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At 9:33 PM, ditchthebitch said…

I can see this happening in the U.S. easily- we used to have the common law marriage for a while, but that has mostly disappeared. I read that married households are now in the minority in the U.S. Read this: http://americanwomenare.blogspot.com/

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At 10:34 PM, HAWKEYE said…

why doesn’t someone stand up and take action?
a good very point ,
but i have this feeling way deep in my soul that in the end we actually wont have to do anything ,
feminism will destroy itself ,because woman only gain there strength from the law,a few words written down on paper,
it is “not the truth” and can not stand for long.